Wearable computers are devices that commonly serve as electronic companions and intelligent assistants to their users. A wearable computer is typically strapped to its user's body or carried by its user in a holster, and can contain a variety of both input and output devices. A wearable computer can output information to its user using, for example, display eyeglasses, audio speakers, or a tactile output device. A wearable computer can receive instructions and other input from its user via input devices such as a keyboard, various pointing devices, or an audio microphone. A wearable computer can receive information about its surroundings using sensors, such as barometric pressure and temperature sensors, global positioning system devices, or a heart rate monitor for determining the heart rate of its user and can receive additional information via communication devices, such as various types of network connections. A wearable computer can exchange information with other devices using communication schemes such as infrared communication, radio communication, or cellular modems.
Many applications for wearable computers utilize data received by the wearable computer from sensors. For example, a position mapping application for a wearable computer may utilize data received from a global positioning system device to plot its user's physical location and determine whether that position is within a special region. In this example, the global positioning system device produces data that is consumed by the position mapping-application.
In conventional wearable computer systems, the position mapping application would be designed to interact directly with the global positioning system device to obtain the needed data. For example, the application may be required to instruct the device to obtain position information, retrieve the information obtained by the device, convert it to conventional latitude and longitude representation, and determine whether the represented location is within the special region.
Such direct interaction between applications and sensors to obtain and process data has significant disadvantages. First, developing an application to interact directly with a particular sensor can introduce into the application dependencies on that sensor. Accordingly, the application may need to be subsequently modified to interact successfully with alternatives to that sensor provided by other manufacturers, or even to interact successfully with future versions of the sensor from the same manufacturer.
Second, direct interaction between the application and the sensor can give rise to conflicts between multiple applications that consume the same data. For example, if the position mapping application was executing on the same wearable computer as a second application for determining the user's distance from home that also used the global positioning system device, the two applications' interactions with the device could interfere with one another.
Third, direct interaction between the application and the sensor can give rise to conflicts between multiple sensors that produce the same data. For example, if the position mapping application was executing on a wearable computer that had access to both the global positioning system device and an indoor positioning system, the application might well have trouble determining which device to use to determine the user's current position, and/or have trouble reconciling data produced by both devices.
Fourth, performing the derivation of abstract information from data observable by sensors in each application that requires the derived abstract information necessitates redundant functionality in each such application, and precludes the development of multiple competing algorithms to derive the same abstract information; rather than having to themselves process data from the sensor to derive more abstract information from data observable by sensors, it would be advantageous for applications to be able to rely on a separate programmatic entity to derive such abstract information. For example, it would be more convenient for the position mapping application to be able rely on a separate programmatic entity to determine whether the user is in a special region based upon the user's location. It would further be advantageous for such applications to share a single separate programmatic entity, rather each implementing the same derivation functionality.
Accordingly, a facility for exchanging information between sensors and applications in a wearable computer system would have significant utility.